Despotism and Democracy: A Study in Washington Society and Politics

Crane went back to his rooms, wrote his letter to Governor Sanders, and awaited developments.

Nothing happened for more than a week concerning the senatorship. Meanwhile, he gave up his expensive rooms, and with the assistance of a note-broker managed to borrow enough money from Peter to pay Paul and to relieve himself from present obligations to one of the gentlemen who had so urgently invited him to commit political hari-kari. He secured quiet quarters in one of the suburbs of Washington and found that he was quite as comfortable as he had been at his high-priced hotel, at about one-fourth the cost.

The May days that followed were cool and bright and soft, as May days in Washington often are. The called session of Congress and the necessary presence of so many officials and diplomats made the gay town gayer than usual. The whole country was in a mood of exhilaration and self-gratulation, which was vividly reflected at Washington.

There could be no doubt that Crane’s success was real and substantial, and that he was already a person to be reckoned with.

Crane hugged himself with satisfaction when he reflected on his escape from being interned in the Senate, forced to remain quiescent during the time that he should have been most active, and finally enter the senatorial contest, two years ahead, with a reputation which would probably have dwindled as rapidly as it had developed. Instead of that he was in the centre of movement and interest, and even if he could not make a serious effort before the Legislature in January, he was in a good strategic position for the senatorial election two years in advance—and a great deal may happen in two years.

The Secretary of State, however, was disappointed in Crane. He proved to be quite as intractable as Thorndyke had been, and with less excuse—for Thorndyke had never been asked to little dinners at the Secretary’s house. The Secretary’s widowed daughter, Mrs. Hill-Smith, the beautiful, well-gowned, soft-voiced granddaughter of Cap’n Josh Slater, of Ohio River fame, murmured once or twice when Crane was under discussion that he was “so very Western,” and assumed a rather apologetic tone for having been seen at the play with him. The Secretary himself, despairing of making the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs a handy tool for the State Department, returned to his legitimate business. This business consisted of labouring and slaving, in conjunction with foreign chancelleries, to make elaborate treaties, which the House and Senate treated as college football teams treat the pigskin on hard-fought fields. The Secretary felt peculiarly aggrieved over the Brazilian affair, in which the State Department made a ridiculously small figure, in spite of innumerable letters, memoranda, protocols, treaties, and what not. When the time came for action the Congress had quietly taken the whole matter in charge, and had not even censured the Secretary if it could not praise him. Could he have been attacked and denounced, as Mr. Balfour and M. Combes and Chancellor von Buelow, and the Prime Ministers of Europe were, it would have been a consolation. But even this was cruelly denied him. He had gone through all the strenuous forms of diplomacy which meant something a hundred years ago, when there was neither cable nor telegraph, and when diplomats were not merely clerks and auditors of their respective foreign offices. The Secretary had practised all the diplomatic expedients he knew. When he had not made up his mind what to say to an ambassador, he had gone to bed with lumbago. When he wished to impress one of the great Powers of Europe with the notion that it had in him a Bismarck to deal with, he had lighted a cigar in the presence of five full-fledged ambassadors. Remembering how eagerly the world always waited for the speech of the Prime Minister of England at the annual Lord Mayor’s banquet, the Secretary had spent a whole month composing and revising his remarks at a great banquet in New York on Decoration Day, and the reporters had got his speech all wrong, and a disrespectful New York newspaper had made game of his trousers, had compared them to Uncle Josh Whitcomb’s in “The Old Homestead,” and had asked pertinently—or impertinently—where the Secretary had hired them. In Congress he fared little better. The Senate had taken some small notice of him. In the House he had been practically ignored, except once when a member alluded to having “an interview with the Secretary of State.” A member of his own party, the same Honourable Mark Antony Hudgins, of Texas, who had guyed Crane, had sternly rebuked his colleague for his phraseology, and declared that what he should have said was “an audience with the Prime Minister”—and the House laughed at the unseemly joke. The Secretary had in secret a low opinion of the collective wisdom of Congress, and in this he was at one with the whole diplomatic body in Washington.

Crane, like everybody else, had really forgotten the Secretary in the press of affairs. He was amazed at not receiving an answer to his letter to Governor Sanders, and so told Thorndyke one night a few days after their meeting at Constance Maitland’s house. Crane had a great esteem for Thorndyke’s sincerity, which was justified, and Thorndyke, in his heart, was forced to admire Crane’s force and to expect great things of him. He did not entertain any doubt of Crane’s loyalty, but he watched curiously the development of the character of a man exposed to Crane’s peculiar temptations. That Crane had both good and bad qualities in great vigour he saw easily enough, but he could not tell which were the fundamentals. Crane was desperately poor, was foolishly proud, was rash and vainglorious, and was destined to shine brilliantly in the world of politics. What was to become of such a man? What usually became of such men? It was with these thoughts that Thorndyke, at his lodgings, on a warm May night, listened to Crane’s account of what had happened to him in the last few days.

He assured Crane that his conduct regarding Governor Sanders and the senatorship seemed eminently sensible, after deducting the initial folly of it. And his making his first serious attempt to save money at the very time when it might be expected he would become extravagant inclined Thorndyke to the belief that Crane was, after all, fundamentally honest.

Crane at that very moment suffered from a feeling of conscious guilt. He had begun to practise more than the one virtue of economy. He was practising several others, but all with a view to his own advantage. One of them was that his wife should come on and visit him during the remainder of the session. She had not been in Washington for five years—not since that first unlucky venture in the Eleventh Street boarding-house.

He mentioned to Thorndyke his intention to send for his wife, and had the grace to say that it was because he was lonely without her—and in saying so he was conscious of uttering a colossal lie. But being inexpert as a liar he did badly, and felt ashamed of doing badly even in lying.

Thorndyke, on whom Annette Crane’s simple and natural charm had made a strong impression, was pleased at the thought that Crane would pay her the compliment of having her with him and pleased at the thought of seeing her again.

“I shall be going West next week,” he said, “and if Mrs. Crane is ready to come to Washington I shall be proud to escort her back.”

“Thank you,” answered Crane, “it would be a kindness to me as well as to Mrs. Crane. She is not an experienced traveller.”

Both Thorndyke and Crane when they were together desired to keep Constance Maitland out of their conversation, but by one of those contradictory and involuntary impulses which cannot be accounted for, her name always came up between them. This time it was by Crane’s saying, after a while:

“Have you seen Miss Maitland lately?”

“I dined there night before last,” answered Thorndyke.

Crane knew that Constance Maitland’s favourite form of entertaining was at little dinners, which were perfection in the way of guests and service. He had never been asked to one of them, and thought gloomily that after Constance’s very plain speaking to him at their last interview his chance of being invited was thin to attenuation.

“Was that the night that fellow Hudgins from Texas dined there?” asked Crane, who had not taken Constance’s sound advice to cultivate reticence.

“Yes, and I never saw a better dinner-man than Hudgins, nor was ever at a more agreeable dinner.”

“Bosh! Hudgins?”

“Yes, Hudgins. The fellow has a quiet manner, a soft voice, and the most delightful and archaic reverence for ‘the ladies,’ as he calls them. It is like what history tells us of General Sam Houston. Hudgins was a screaming success at the dinner.”

Seeing that the account of Hudgins’s triumph gave Crane acute discomfort, Thomdyke, lighting a fresh cigar, kept on remorselessly:

“Miss Maitland wanted to ask some really representative man to meet Sir Mark le Poer, a very agreeable and considerable Englishman, one of the permanent under-secretaries in the British Foreign Office—it seems he is a great friend of hers. He had been gorgeously entertained by all the retired trades-people who are in the smart set here, but complained that he hadn’t met any Americans—they would ask all the diplomats to meet him, fellows that bored him to death in Europe and still more so here. It seems that Miss Maitland had heard that the long, thin, soft-voiced Texan was delightful at dinner—so she asked me to bring him to call, and the dinner invitation followed. Besides Sir Mark and Hudgins and myself, there was Cathcart—a navy man—good old New England family, four generations in the navy, travelled man of the world, and flower of civilisation. But Hudgins was easily the star of the occasion. There were three other women present besides Miss Maitland, all of them charming women, who know the world and command it; and the way they, as well as the Englishman and the naval officer, fell in love with Hudgins and his soft Texas accent, and his stupendous Texas yarns, and his way of looking at things—well, it was a show.”

“Oh, come, Thorndyke—Hudgins!”

“Yes, Hudgins, I tell you. When the time came for the ladies to leave the table none of them wanted to go, and they said so. Then Hudgins rose and said in that inimitable manner of his, which catches the women every time, ‘If Miss Maitland would kindly permit it, I’d rather a million times go into the parlour with her and the other ladies than stay out here with these fellows. I can get the society of men and a cigar any day, but it isn’t often that I can bask in the presence of ladies like these present.’ And the presumptuous dog actually walked off and left us in the lurch—and you can depend upon it, the women liked him better than any of us.”

“If women are won by compliments like that, any man can win their favour,” said Crane, crossly.

“My dear fellow, women know vastly more than we do. It wasn’t Hudgins’s compliments in words that won the women—it was his giving up his cigar and the extra glass of champagne and the society of men that fetched ’em—it was the sincerity of the thing. When we went into the drawing-room Hudgins was sitting on the piano-stool telling them some sentimental story about his mother down in Texas when he started out in life, with nothing but the clothes on his back and a six-shooter in his pocket. The women were nearly in tears. As for the rest of us, including Sir Mark le Poer, we simply weren’t in it with Hudgins. We stayed until nearly midnight; then the men adjourned to the club, where Hudgins kept us until three o’clock in the morning telling us more yarns about Texas. Sir Mark would hardly let him out of sight, and Hudgins has engaged to spend August with him in Scotland at a splendid place he has near Inverness. That’s the way a man with great natural gifts of entertaining and being entertained can get on, if he has a chance.”

Crane felt humiliated and disappointed. In all honesty, he could not imagine why he, with his recognised talents, his extreme good looks, his fondness for society, should have no such social triumphs as that long, lean, lanky Texan. He had not grasped the truth that society is a pure democracy, and until a man has abandoned all pretensions to superiority he will not be acceptable in it.

Just then, along the dusky street a carriage came rolling. At Thorndyke’s door it stopped, a footman descended from the box and assisted Senator Bicknell to alight.

“The Senator has come hunting you up,” Thorndyke remarked to Crane. “When a man is anxious enough to see you to come after you, it is generally possible to make your own terms with him.”

Crane’s backbone was considerably stiffened by this remark of Thorndyke’s, and then Senator Bicknell walked in the room and greeted Thorndyke and Crane affably. He made an elaborate apology for seeking Crane, but said frankly he wished to discuss some matters of State politics with him.

Thorndyke at once rose to leave the room, but Crane, asking Senator Bicknell if he had any objection to Thorndyke’s remaining and the Senator feebly agreeing to it, Thorndyke sat down again to enjoy the scrap. As it was not in his own party, he was a perfectly disinterested listener.

“Mr. Crane,” began Senator Bicknell, in a dulcet voice, “I hardly think you realise what it means to our State organisation to introduce discord into it at this time.”

It was less than fourteen months before a national convention and the rainbow of a Presidential nomination had arisen upon Senator Bicknell’s political horizon. This had happened more than once, but the Senator had never been able, heretofore, to catch the rainbow by the tail—yet, hope springs eternal in the human breast.

To this Crane replied, firmly:

“I desire, Senator, to do everything I can to promote harmony in the State organisation. It is Governor Sanders who is making trouble, and I shall defend myself from him, and die in the last ditch, if necessary.”

Crane was by nature a gladiator, and the prospect of a fight by no means discomposed him.

Senator Bicknell sighed. He had already on his hands nine bloody fights in various parts of the State, and the prospect of a tenth fight, of a triangular nature at that, with two such sluggers as Crane and the Governor of the State, made the Senator’s head ache. He looked sadly at Thorndyke and yearned after a knowledge of the secret by which his friend, Senator Standiford, could get hold of a man like Thorndyke, and keep him forever in a subordinate position, while he, Senator Bicknell, was always engaged in a tussle with his lieutenants.

Crane improved the opportunity to explain fully his position; and there could not be the slightest doubt that he had narrowly escaped from a conspiracy meant to ruin him.

Senator Bicknell said little and was evidently impressed by Crane’s statement. Thorndyke was mentally comparing his own boss with Crane’s boss. All the pleas in the world would not have availed Crane had he been dealing with Standiford. He would have been required to sacrifice himself without a moment’s hesitation and accept the disastrous honour of the senatorial appointment or be quietly put out of the way. Politics with Senator Standiford was a warfare in which quarter was neither asked nor given, and no time was permitted to succour the wounded or bury the dead. Yet Thorndyke doubted if Senator Bicknell, or any man then in public life, had ever known a tithe of the tremendous parental passion which Senator Standiford had for his daughter. So strange a thing is human nature.

A discussion followed Crane’s words which made a very important fact clear: that Crane had suddenly become a factor in State politics. Crane’s colour deepened as Senator Bicknell made a last effort with him for peace with Sanders, and when it was met with a firm refusal to accept the appointment, Senator Bicknell dropped some words which indicated plainly that if forced to choose sides he might be with Crane. For a man who a month before had been obscure this was a vast though silent triumph.

After an hour’s talk Senator Bicknell got up and departed. It was well on toward ten o’clock, and Crane, too, rose to go. Thorndyke went out with him and they walked together as far as the foot of the hill at Connecticut Avenue. Then Thorndyke turned back, to indulge in a folly which had been his nightly, since that first afternoon with Constance Maitland. It was, to pass within sight of her house, then to return sick at heart to his own rooms and ask himself if he could be such a fool as to wish her to give up that charming home for lodgings such as he could afford.

Crane presently reached his quarters, a comfortable suburban house with many verandas, and not unlike his own house at Circleville. On the table in his room lay a parcel, evidently containing photographs. He opened it and took out a photograph of his wife with her two children, Roger and Elizabeth, by her side. The children were handsome—the boy the sturdy, well-made replica of his father, the little girl her mother in miniature; both of them children of whom any father might be proud. As for Annette, the sweetness, the soft, appealing character of her beauty, was singularly brought out in the photograph. Nor was there any suspicion of weakness in the face, which most men would have fallen in love with on the spot.

But Crane was dissatisfied. She was not a woman even to be talked about. Crane would have liked a woman whose name would be in the newspapers every day. True, Constance Maitland kept out of them all she could, but she was too striking a personality not to attract the attention of the society correspondents. If she had been the wife of a public man, she would have been in print quite as often as he was.

Still Crane was glad he had sent for his wife. He had not realised until this crisis in his fate had come upon him what a mistake he had made in not having her with him sometimes. Not a man of his acquaintance who owned a wife but had her occasionally in Washington. He began to think with terror of what his enemies might have to say concerning this, and then, going to his table, wrote Annette another letter more urgent than his first, in his desire that she should come to Washington. He mentioned the chance that Thorndyke, who had never failed to show interest in her, had offered to escort her East. He felt like a hero and a martyr while writing this. But after he had posted his letter, and he had gone back to the balcony of his room and gazed out into the solemn night, he had a return of that strange sense of guilt. He felt like a hypocrite; and, as he was not a hypocrite by nature, the feeling was uncomfortable. He put his request to Annette on the same ground he had alleged to Thorndyke—his wish to see her. And he ought to wish to see her—he did wish to see her; but the stillness of the night and the presence of the stars is disconcerting sometimes to one’s conscience. The stars were very bright and it was wonderfully clear, although the moon was just rising. Tall apartment houses blazing with light made centres of radiance in the purple night. The Washington monolith was like a pillar of cloud, and the dome of the Capitol seemed suspended in mid-air. It was all very beautiful, but Crane saw nothing of its beauty. He saw only before him a struggle with stupendous forces—these he feared not—but also a struggle with himself; and this he feared! He went to bed and slept uneasily.